Tarta de Naranjas

Perhaps one of the prettiest tarts I've ever made, Anya von Bremzen's Tarta de Naranjas came out just as expected. Beautiful to look at and tasty to eat. The pastry crust is composed mostly of butter, confectioner's sugar, one egg and a little bit of heavy whipping cream. The recipe made more than needed for a 9-inch tart pan, but it came out just right: sturdy and crispy, sweet and buttery. Preparing the oranges was a serious labor of love, requiring light simmering of the slices for about 15 minutes, in an OJ-orange zest-sugar preparation over the stove. Then the slices must be cooled, and finally pat dry and halved. Once the tart shell had been baked, I added marmalade to the bottom of the pastry, and topped with the orange slices, then put in the oven to bake the oranges. (I had to cover the edges of crust with aluminum foil the entire time, to be sure they wouldn't burn.) The bits of white that you see above are the areas of granulated sugar that did not fully caramelize (the darkened parts prove where the sugar did caramelize).

Again, I cannot plug too frequently The New Spanish Table. Von Bremzen gives excellent descriptions and how-to of the recipes, and they're clearly well-researched, as everything I've made has come out just as expected. Choosing what to make next from it is perhaps the only difficult thing about the book. . . .